‘The infant will do well enough with his nursemaid,’ Holmes observed disinterestedly. ‘That is considered perfectly natural in children of his class. Meanwhile, the evidence Gregson holds appears to implicate Lady Goring. He would be derelict in his duty not to act as he has done, and it is to his credit that he has. Ladies are no more above the law than lords are, and if a policeman will not uphold that law when it becomes a hazard to his career, then he does not deserve a career at all.’
‘But surely you do not believe that Lady Goring is guilty, Holmes?’
‘Believe? I believe nothing, Watson, except that we are not yet in possession of all the facts. So far, Inspector Gregson has offered no motive for the crime on Lady Goring’s part, nor any proof that the death was not accidental even if she was involved. We have not established whether the shawl could indeed have been tossed into the tree from the balcony. We have no idea who the dead man was, nor why he came to the house.’ He had been ticking off points on his bony fingers. ‘Such information may, as you and Lord Goring hope, exonerate Lady Goring. On the other hand, it may convict her. Without it, we have no hope of making a case for either outcome.’
I fell into a gloomy silence for a few minutes, as we strolled by unspoken consent in the direction of Hyde Park.
‘On the question of Bunbury’s identity,’ I said, ‘the name meant something to the Moncrieffs, I’m sure of it. The brothers, at least, and I think Gwendolen as well.’
‘That point was clear to me also,’ Holmes agreed. ‘I wondered only how long it would take for you to voice it.’
I said, ‘We should return to Belgrave Square and speak to Ernest and Gwendolen.’
‘There are times, Watson, when our minds are as one.’ He smiled, and produced from a pocket Mabel Goring’s torn shawl. ‘While we are there, we should also experiment with throwing this from the balcony. We can return it to the good inspector later. I suspect he’ll not miss it in the meantime.’
It being a fine morning, though cold, we wrapped ourselves in our mufflers and walked through the park, past the ornamental fountain that stands near Grosvenor Gate and down past the statue of Achilles, that peculiar memorial to the Duke of Wellington from the women of Britain, which eschews the traditional equestrian figure in favour of a classical bronze hero scarcely more decorously clad than those cavorting nymphs on Sir Robert Chiltern’s Octagon Room tapestry.
From there we passed through the great colonnaded gateway that marks Hyde Park Corner, and crossed to Grosvenor Crescent, named, like the square, the gate and much of the rest of that region of London, for the aristocratic family who have owned it for generations. At length we arrived once more at Belgrave Square, the name of which derives from another of the same family’s titles, and knocked at the door of Number 149.
We were shown by Merriman the butler into a first-floor drawing room, where we found both Moncrieff brothers and their wives entertaining a woman dressed all in black, with a veil concealing the upper part of her face. For a moment I thought that it might be Mrs Teville, the widow from the previous night, but this lady’s figure suggested that the youth which Mrs Teville was battling against the passage of time to retain was hers by right of birth. She was introduced to us as Mrs Winterbourne, their next-door neighbour, who must, I realised, own the tree in which Mabel Goring’s shawl had become lodged.
‘How concerning it is to meet you here, Mr Holmes,’ she said in a light, trilling voice once we were settled among them with cups of tea. Her deeper mourning betokened a loss recent enough that convention would not expect her to be abroad, but the Moncrieffs were a young family with modern ideas. As a widower myself, I sympathised. Though it may protect society from the distress of seeing their grief, I have never considered enforced solitude to be healthy or constructive for the bereaved. ‘It was you, was it not, who took Lord Arthur Savile away to Scotland Yard yesterday morning? I shall be most unhappy if the same fate awaits dear Mr Moncrieff.’
Ernest insisted, ‘My conscience is at ease, Mrs Winterbourne. Unless Mr Holmes has been engaged by my tailor to investigate the matter of his unpaid bills, I am in no danger.’
‘I read about Lord Arthur in the newspaper,’ Cecily said. ‘I hope what he did was very wicked, Mr Holmes. I should hate to think that you had wasted your time.’
‘A jury will determine that,’ Holmes replied shortly. ‘I am not here to investigate Mr Moncrieff, Mrs Winterbourne. However, as his house is the scene of last night’s crime, if crime it were, I can hardly ignore it.’
‘And so you return here,’ the widow said. ‘How interesting, that what they say of murderers should be true of detectives also.’
Gwendolen said, ‘Lord Arthur always seemed to be a perfect gentleman: quiet, respectable and a devoted family man. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he had a skeleton in his closet.’
‘Most men have, you know,’ said Mrs Winterbourne, ‘if one only steels oneself to open the door and look. My first and second husbands both did.’
‘And your third?’ asked Holmes.
The young widow’s veil made it difficult to be sure, but I thought that she looked appraisingly at Holmes. ‘In his case I felt it best not to enquire,’ she replied. ‘Twice bitten, one is entitled to be once shy at the very least. All the late Mr Winterbourne’s skeletons went to the grave with him, and I have no interest in disinterring them.’
‘It’s quite a coincidence, though, my dear fellow,’ Algernon observed to Holmes, ‘you investigating two cases in Belgrave Square in so many days.’
‘We must certainly hope so,’ Holmes replied smoothly. ‘May I ask if you also learned about Lord Arthur from today’s papers, Mrs Winterbourne?’
‘Oh, no. There is little that escapes me, Mr Holmes. I am always on the lookout for comings and goings in the square. I watched all the arrivals and departures from the occasion last night, for instance – including your own and that of Dr Watson, in Lord Goring’s landau. As a recent widow it would not be fitting for me to attend society events, even when they occur in the house next door to mine, but I miss the company. I intend, when I return to society, to bring the very best information with me.’
‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Ernest. ‘I do hope your information isn’t too accurate, Mrs Winterbourne.’
‘If it were accurate, Mr Moncrieff,’ she replied with a small smile, ‘it would hardly be the best.’
‘In such matters, sensation, not accuracy, is the vital thing,’ Gwendolen agreed.
‘If you were watching the front door all night, Mrs Winterbourne,’ said Holmes, ‘then your testimony may be invaluable.’
Gregson had supplied us with a list of known times of arrival and departure for the various guests, which Holmes now proceeded to confirm with the widow.
We had already known that Ernest and Gwendolen Moncrieff were present throughout the evening. Gregson’s itinerary, which Mrs Winterbourne now confirmed, had Algernon and Cecily as the first guests to arrive, with the Gorings following them at around eight o’clock, then a steady flow of others until around ten. The last guest to enter was Mrs Teville, the widow of the night before, who had arrived only shortly before Bunbury. Finally, there was Bunbury himself, whom Mrs Winterbourne had seen arrive on foot. Those others who had turned up after the discovery of the body had been politely turned away by the servants.
There were some guests who had already left by then, such as Lady Caroline Pontefract and her husband Sir John, whose protracted departure had begun roughly with Bunbury’s arrival but who had not left until shortly before the unpleasant scene in the garden, and the present Lord and Lady Windermere, who had left still earlier, at around nine-thirty. Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern had arrived with the Gorings, but had departed by ten and could, Gregson assumed, be ruled out of our enquiries. Around twenty guests had been present throughout the half-hour between Bunbury’s arrival and the discovery of his body, including Mr and Mrs Algernon Moncrieff, Lord and Lady Goring, Major and Mrs Nepcote, Mrs Tevi
lle, Lord Illingworth and Gwendolen’s mother, Lady Bracknell.
The musicians, both the band in the ballroom and the string quartet in the music room, had been playing throughout the same half-hour, with only brief intervals between pieces. Gregson had a separate list which charted the few occasions when the servants had been on solitary errands in empty parts of the house, but Mrs Winterbourne could hardly be expected to corroborate those, and besides, by this time the evident boredom of the Moncrieff family was getting the better of them. The young widow excused herself decorously and returned next door, leaving us alone with our hosts.
‘How did you know Mrs Winterbourne had been thrice widowed?’ I asked Holmes after she left, as a footman poured me some more tea.
‘The language she used,’ Holmes explained. ‘Had she been married but twice, she would have referred to “both my husbands”, or something similar. Whether she chose her words deliberately or not, “my first and second husbands” suggests further husbands from whom a distinction must be made. I concluded that Mrs Winterbourne has had the misfortune to lose not two, but three spouses, or even more.’
‘To lose one husband is certainly a misfortune,’ Gwendolen agreed. ‘To lose three smacks of policy. The reason is that Mrs Winterbourne has a charitable fondness for invalids, Mr Holmes, especially wealthy ones.’
‘And speaking of invalids,’ Ernest said with a glance at Algernon, who smiled lazily, ‘or rather, I should say, of jumping to invalid conclusions… have the police thought better yet of their absurd idea that the man who fell was murdered?’
‘They have not,’ said Holmes coolly. ‘Indeed, I believe they have a suspect in mind for the crime. Tell me, Mr Moncrieff, were you aware that Mr Bunbury was waiting for you in the library last night?’
Ernest played nervously with his moustache. ‘No, I was not aware that Mr Bunbury was waiting for me in the library last night. That is to say, I believe Merriman did mention something about somebody waiting for someone somewhere, but he certainly didn’t allude to the name Bunbury. In any case, I told him that it was the height of bad manners to interrupt pleasure for business.’
‘A servant’s duties may sometimes force them into what would be bad manners among their betters,’ Holmes observed.
‘Merriman’s position requires him to be a paragon of rectitude,’ drawled Algernon. ‘If the lower orders won’t set us a good example, what is the use of them?’
‘Were you with your brother when Merriman made this announcement, Mr Moncrieff?’ Holmes asked Algernon.
‘Certainly not.’
‘Oh, come, Algy,’ Ernest remonstrated. ‘We were in the music room at the time, with Cecily, Aunt Augusta, Lord Illingworth and Mabel Goring… I believe Mrs Teville was there, too.’
‘My dear fellow, if that’s true then I might as well have been in Stevenage. The music those fellows were playing was so thunderously German that I couldn’t have heard a word if Merriman had bellowed at me through an ear-trumpet.’
‘I do remember Merriman talking to Ernest,’ said Cecily, ‘but I was distracted by some particularly aggressive arpeggios.’
Holmes turned his attention to Gwendolen. ‘You were not there at the time, Mrs Moncrieff?’
‘No, I remained downstairs in the ballroom. I wasn’t even aware that there was a stranger in the house until after his precipitate departure.’
Holmes looked carefully around at the assembled Moncrieffs and asked, ‘So you are all quite certain that he was a stranger?’
‘Of course,’ said Ernest peevishly. ‘Although I can’t imagine why such a person would think I would speak to him on any kind of business matter during a ball. My friends are all atrociously ill-bred, but I would expect a stranger to know better.’
‘Of the four of you, I believe only your sister-in-law saw him,’ Holmes persisted. ‘How can you be so certain that you didn’t know the man?’
Ernest was taken aback. ‘Well, as I’ve said, someone who actually knew me would have had better taste.’
‘Forgive me, Mr Moncrieff, but that is the exact opposite of what you said.’
Flustered, Ernest picked a different conversational tack. ‘Well, if you want my view, the man was a common thief. He gained access to the house under false pretences, stole poor Lady Goring’s brooch, then tried to make his escape by the balcony. If he hadn’t slipped and killed himself we might never have been the wiser.’
‘The objections to that idea are so numerous and obvious that I do believe Watson could enumerate them,’ said Holmes languidly.
He raised his eyebrow at me in expectation, and I said something like, ‘Oh. Ah.’ I had been enjoying my tea and watching Holmes work, and felt rather put on the spot by his suddenly conscripting me into the conversation.
I said, ‘Well… there’s the position the body was found in, and its injuries. Those are far more consistent with a sudden backward fall. If he had slipped while climbing he’d have ended up huddled underneath the balcony with his legs twisted or broken, but probably he would have survived. But why would he have risked leaving that way at all, when he arrived openly through the tradesmen’s entrance and could have left the same way without arousing suspicion?’
I was unsure whether to mention the other point that sprung to mind, which was that a thief could have either neatly detached Mabel Goring’s brooch from the shawl or else just pocketed the whole garment. Though the Moncrieffs had evidently heard about the brooch, I was unsure whether the evidence of the torn shawl would be known to them. Instead, I asked, ‘Have I missed anything, Holmes?’
‘Only that this house contains a great many other valuable objects, many of them not attached to people, which it would have been easier for a thief to steal,’ my friend said. He gestured around at the drawing room, which did indeed hold a number of expensive ornaments. ‘A thief, or an unscrupulous debt-collector,’ he added.
‘Mr Holmes!’ Gwendolen exclaimed, aghast. ‘That insinuation is most objectionable.’
Ernest shrugged and said, ‘If you’re thinking of my tailors, you may certainly ask them if they know the fellow. Use my name if you like.’ He gave the address of a Jermyn Street firm into whose windows I had occasionally peered with envy as I walked past. ‘You might mention that my latest order of shirt collars is deplorably late.’
‘Forgive me,’ Holmes asked with very little evidence of contrition, ‘but do you owe any other debts?’
‘An unpaid restaurant bill here, a tobacconist’s account there. Nothing of sufficient substance that my creditors would send thugs to extract it with menaces. Although you remind me that I should pay my church tithes as a matter of urgency.’
Holmes tutted, a sure sign that his reserves of tact were running dry. He said, ‘There is one further question I must ask, before I prevail upon you to allow the use of your balcony for an experiment in ballistics. What, please, is the actual significance of the name Bunbury?’
All four of the Moncrieffs looked at one another with exaggerated bafflement. ‘There’s no significance to it at all,’ Algernon said at last. ‘As I’ve said, it’s not the sort of name one’s likely to come across in real life.’
‘On the contrary,’ insisted Holmes, who I knew had spent some time before breakfast consulting his Index, ‘there is a lineage of baronets of that name, the incumbent being Sir Henry Bunbury, a naval officer. Two entirely unrelated Thomas Bunburys have served with distinction both in the army and as colonial governors. A third is the Dean of Limerick. There is nothing implausible about the name, so why are you so certain that it is an alias?’
Algernon raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Oh, really?’ he said. ‘Well then, I suppose I’m mistaken. Maybe it was the chap’s real name after all. Rather a leaden one, though. It has a heavy, dull quality to it, don’t you think? Rather like the sound made by dropping a really solid teacake. I detest teacakes.’
‘It has none of the romance or dash of Moncrieff,’ Cecily agreed. ‘I wonder what his Christian name was?�
�
‘At this stage his Christian name is hardly germane,’ Holmes objected.
‘No, I should think not,’ Algernon scoffed. ‘A Bunbury he may have been, but a Germain Bunbury would be taking things altogether too far. No, he would have a stolid English name, I fancy, like Kenneth. No Kenneth could compose a piano concerto, or tie a really elegant necktie. A Kenneth Bunbury would be practically born to fall off a balcony.’
‘Enough, sir!’ snapped Holmes, and I could see that he was, an enormous rarity for him, genuinely angry. ‘A man died here last night, very probably as the victim of murderous violence, and you are making pleasantries out of his name! He may not have been of much account by your reckoning, but he was a man nonetheless, and his death should be weighing heavily upon you all. Dr Watson and I intend to find out who killed him. Will we have your cooperation, or do you intend to offer us nothing but facetiousness and flippancy?’
There was a silence, and it became clear that the family’s show of imperviousness had been somewhat dented by my friend’s censure.
Cecily gave me a shamefaced glance. Ernest shifted awkwardly in his seat and avoided looking at Holmes or myself. Even Gwendolen’s composure appeared a little ruffled. Algernon was the most embarrassed of them all. He cleared his throat twice, then, in a chastised tone, began, ‘Well, you see—’ Then his eyes became suddenly wide, and he leapt to his feet as if electrified. His brother and their womenfolk followed suit at once, as, alarmed, did I.
Behind us, a voice like an indignant French horn demanded, ‘What, sir, is the meaning of this importunate interrogation?’
As I turned to the door, Merriman coughed awkwardly and belatedly announced the arrival of Lady Bracknell.
CHAPTER SIX
ENTER LADY BRACKNELL
Gwendolen Moncrieff’s mother was a statuesque woman in the latest of late middle age, wearing a purple floral dress and a purple feathered hat. Her face bore a resemblance to Gwendolen’s which, though at present merely a hint of what the daughter might grow into, made it difficult to look at Gwendolen in quite the same light afterwards.
Sherlock Holmes--The Spider's Web Page 7
